The Heinz Endowments, a foundation that makes grants in a variety of areas including Children Youth & Families, has been offering its grantees a tremendous opportunity for exposure: a two-week spot on the foundation's home page to tell their stories "as they know best." Using this "In the Spotlight" opportunity, grantees can post blogs, video, photos, links to other sites and any other content they choose.

Linda Braund, communications manager for The Heinz Endowments, says the foundation has been offering In The Spotlight for a year-and-a-half. with "some of our grantees using the tool more successfully than others." The premise, she says, "is that they get the opportunity to tell their story in their own way." Grantees can refresh their posts as frequently or as infrequently as they like. However, says Braund, the first entry is always a Q&A with the head of the organization; that is the one consistent element.

Once that first entry is posted, says Braund, "then we turn it over to the grantee; it's their baby then. They can have as many entries as they want; some do four a day and some do four over the entire two weeks so there are different levels of participation."

The thinking behind the program, says Braund was "the huge push for social media from every direction. But we didn't want to do social media just for the sake of doing it. We thought it was a good opportunity to get rich content on our site that grantees could do themselves. It would not necessarily be polished."

After filling out what Braund calls "the world's shortest application," applicants are confirmed as recent grantees and scheduled for their In the Spotlight. Since there are only two a month, the scheduling is about six months in advance.

Grantees who take part in the program receive a detailed, 16-page guide to getting started and making the most of the opportunity There are extensive tips on uploading photos, communicating with video, and blogging. Grantees are also provided with a Flip camcorder to use in creating video. "While the foundation will help with video or blogging," says Braund, "The grantees much choose to run this on their own." As an example of how the guide coaches grantees, here is an excerpt on "Telling Your Story":

"Nonprofit organizations do important and meaningful work that has the ability to change lives and improve our world. Take the time to harvest the stories that demonstrate the impact your organization has on those it serves. By telling stories of how individuals are affected by the issue you are working to solve, you personalize your mission and goals and make them more memorable. The medium defines how the story is conveyed, but it shouldn't define the story.

Once the grantees have posted a couple of entries, Braund sends e-mails to the foundation's full readership "to get In The Spotlight grantees a different audience." Visitors can sign up to receive email updates about individual grantees featured in this special section of the Heinz web site.

After a grantee's two-week tenure is over, their Spotlight moves into the archives and is not highlighted on the home page. However, it is accessible and readers may continue to leave comments. And, if a user clicked on "Following this Spotlight," they will continue to get an e-mail with a link any time a new entry is made by the grantee or a comment is made. They cannot e-mail readers directly but the system will send readers an e-mail if any changes are made to the grantee Spotlight.

Braund says that the foundation has not done any monitoring of how much exposure In The Spotlight provides, but she adds, "I do look at our own Web statistics and see that some of these are among our most viewed pages."

Among the grantees that have taken their places "In The Spotlight" have been the Children's Institute of Pittsburgh and The Consortium for Public Education.

Her one disappointment about the initiative, says Braund, is difficulty in getting comments on the In The Spotlight pages.

The foundation, says Braund, intends to continue with In The Spotlight; she says, "We are trying to be true to the idea of social media and now feel that we have a toe in the water."

Explaining "being true to social media," Braund says, "The posts are not scrutinized and edited before they are uploaded. Although some people at our foundation were a little worried up front, we have not had any problems with inappropriate content. I do keep an eye on the Spotlight though; every time anyone uploads anything or leaves a comment, I get an e-mail with a link to the entry. But I review it after the fact; I don't filter anything and only make changes when requested by the grantee. After they publish something, they cannot edit it; I have to do it for them."

The Spotlight has been featured within the foundation community several times, and each time Braund has been contacted by her counterparts asking about the process, costs, etc. And, she concludes, "We actually won the Council on Foundations gold award for our website last year, largely due to the Spotlight."

Here is a link to previous In The Spotlight content: http://www.heinz.org/grants_spotlight_archive.aspx